gate there and shut it. >> i am al, the property manager for 642 jones. since i have been involved with the property, my colleague was involved with it prior to me when the gate went in. but from what i have seen and what i have heard from people and tenants in the building and people in the neighborhood is that the vast majority of people understand and realize it's a great improvement for that block and for the neighborhood. and i understand that there is some issues that miss utt is dealing with and some alterations or changes have been done to accommodate her. but i think you need to take into consideration what has been done to the area? and the benefit that it is providing for the city? the police

department, the fire department are 100% behind it because they have seen the difference that it has made. we don't have piles of debris brought in by homeless people setting up camp that could become a fire hazard and the criminal activity has disappeared for all of these reasons. and the quality of life for tenants in that neighborhood, i think you have seen as you looked at the brief, there are a lot letters from tenants, people in the neighborhood that are in favor of the gate and have demand the big change that has occurred since the gate was pus into put into place. you can multiply that by a factor of ten, people that were willing to write letters versus people with the same sentiment, but didn't want to put their name on a piece of paper or go public or appear here.

i would ask that you deny the appellant and keep the gate. >> my name is scott, the patrol special police and regarding about our cars blocking the driveway, the only time we do that is if we get an urgent call from a resident regarding a homeless person harassing the residents we'll park there really quick, 2-3 minutes. before the gate was there, cars used to block the whole alley. before they were three cars' deep, so she won't be able to get the wheelchair through anyways. since the gate is there, no cars can park in the alley. before the gate, we would find feces and urine and people actually dumping garbage that would block all exits to the building. you couldn't get out, because you would push the door and garbage is blocking the door.

when we see graffiti we would called 311 and it the garbage would sit for days. i left the building the other day and stepped on a needle, and went through my shoe. so when the gate is open, people are getting in there. geary and jones, people are buying their drugs and they go back in the corner by 642 there are like three stairs where you can step down where you can't see them when you pass by. so i think the gate should be locked at all times for the safety of the residents. there are a lot of young people who live at 642 jones and thank us for the gate being there for their safety. so i think the gate should stay up. >> thank you. we can hear from the

departments now. you will have time for rebuttal. >> commissioners, i think we were up a few months ago on this a permit and looking at the plans, they were looked and properly reviewed and issued. we still have to do inspections in the field to ensure it meets exiting and accessibility. it's treated as a door in the building for accessibility.

so i'm available for any questions, if you have any. >> mr. sanchez -- commissioners i see that john kwon is here from the department of public works. he is not a party to the appeal, but i don't know if you would like to entertain any comments he might have this evening? >> do you have comments? >> -- good evening, john kwon from the department of public works. the department's comments is more related to the minor encroachment permit that was affirmed by this board earlier on prior to the building permit. in that hearing there was discussion of possibly additional work that would be required in the public right-of-way to establish level

landings and accessibility requirements. we have not begun the inspection process to make that evaluation with permit applicant at this point. so we're continuing to move forward and we'll wait for the building department finishes verifying that the gate is installed properly and evaluate the accessibility features and make adjusts as necessary in the public right-of-way with another public works permit in this case. >> thank you. >> we can take public comment now, of people who want to speak under public comment. again, please come to the far side of the podium. and and if you haven't already submitted speaker cards, we would ask that you prepare a speaker card when you come to speak or when you are finished speaking and give it to the clerk.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. i live in 691 post street. >> your name? >> my name is robert chazana and i'm probably the oldest resident in that building. i don't know, we don't do a census. i am 73 years old and i sent a letter to hawthorne statement /stone and my doctors declared me 100% disabled. we're talking about an ada door and let's just have a picture of the door. we can see it's got an ada sticker on it. so the way i understand the law and you have

an attorney there and maybe he can correct me, but any gate that you put up must allow access to the mandated door that was put in by hawthorne/stone to mitigate the construction work they did. that is the law after 1983. that is the ada law. okay. so we have the gate, the door. we don't have any disputes over that. we have the ramp. there is no dispute over that. so what are we talking about? we're talking about a gate and quite frankly, i am quite happy to have a gate. but we have a problem with mr. flynn. mr. flynn put in a gate illegally. he locked us out of the

backdoor, pretty well for five months. then he allowed limited access and after the appeal hearing, we were distributed with keys, and you mandated that the doors of the gate be open. and there were certain suggestions and certain types of construction. unfortunately and i'm completely confused as to what the building department said just now. because i understood there was an inspection of the gate and the construction work and the permits were issued on the basis of that. after that was done, a workman from mr. flynn's -- under his direction, cut off the bottom of the gate. the result was -- i made a

mistake yesterday -- no, i'm sorry, the day before. and i went in and i checked the gate and i opened the side gate, and then i tried to open the other gate. and it drops to the floor. and, in fact, we had to have assistance from somebody from 620, mr. flynn's other building to help us lift the gate. i wasn't strong enough and i had another person with me and this gate is not designed for what they have done. the only way that you can have a gate -- i will show you another picture that shows you better. >> your time is up, sir. >> okay. >> thank you >> you have to start again. >> thank you. >> and put a new gate in. >> next speaker, please.

>> hello, i am the wife of mr. chazana, and he hurt his back very badly this year. he has always been a big, strong guy, who did everything and had back problems and now he is a weak man. the doctor says his problems are getting worse with age with his back and they will continue to get worse. so we're dealing with an ongoing disability and i will probably be the caregiver. when we got the stack of papers from the other side for this hearing it was very formidable. they have all kinds of exhibits and witnesses and different aspects of the situation are detailed in quite a great detail. but this whole thing in our viewpoint is not a contest. it's not majority/minority or a vote. what we are saying is

that americans with disabilities act means that disabled people have legal rights regardless of whether they are a majority or minority. so what we are asking for is not anything special. we're just asking to have our legal rights observed and upheld. also, we're not asking for anything new. before we always had access through the backdoor to the alley and the street. it was open and we could come and go and bring in a car and load and unload groceries. if the person had to go to a doctor, they could go to the backdoor and go to the car and go to the doctor. we are not asking for anything that we didn't have before, but we're only asking that we have that access preserved. there are details of the things that we want and people have listed them. so the other

night my husband was checking the gate and then he found very interesting things. last night he took me out to look at it. i am fairly strong. i am 70, but i'm still pretty strong. but when the gate is opened, when the gate is closed, there are two big wings to the gate are closed, they are bolted by this bolt. it's a rod that slips into another rod. and you can see here that these things do not align. when they are aligned, because of the weight of the gate, because it's the structure has been changed. when the weight of the gate is on there, it's virtually impossible for either my husband or myself to swivel this rod and open the gate. i mean, it's really sad, because it's a huge, beautiful gate they put up. but it's just got to be dealt

with. and if that isn't enough, also this is more. the small gate doesn't close properly. and this is a picture of the door to the small gate, where it doesn't close, even close properly when it's misaligned. i mean, it's sort of sad, if it wasn't ridiculous. >> thank you. >> i could say more, but that is it. >> next speaker, please. >> my name is loray and i have a resident of 600 block of jones street. first i lived in 642 jones for about a year, year and a half and moved over to 691 post street. i also used to be a maintenance person in 642 jones when i moved there in 1989, so i did clean the alley and i know what he is talking about.

i know all neighborhoods change, it has changed and not for the worse, but for the better. i think there has been lots of exaggerations about the alley and what has been taking place. and since the mandate of the gate being opened, it hasn't been like it used to be. somebody pproacheded pictures from maybe before thanksgiving that yes, there was maybe two homeless people shooting up in the alley. well, it's the city of san francisco, people shoot up all over the place. it doesn't matter where they are. they will do that. people will defecate on city streets or the dogs will defecate. it doesn't matter where they are, whether there is a gate or not. this is really about handicapped access. and so i just think that the safety, again, if the gates are closed at night, yes, there is more protection for the people that live in both buildings. i am for that. i really hate that gate is up there, but if it has to be up, open during the day, close it at night.

the other thing and tuck would understand the term, this has been furr bar from the beginning. it was illegal, no permits and it was done under the wire and it was done without consent and now the gate is damaged. he screwed up again. how how many screwups does mr. flynn have to do before the board recognizes that is he incompetent and this is not right for our neighborhood? i am advocating that it come down and your time being better spent and our time be better spent and we can do something else, since he has the security force and they want to come out during the day and guard it great. it doesn't make sense to me, they are guarding an alleyway when nobody can get in? that is insanity and mr. flynn

continues to behave insanely. i so i would ask to you reevaluate his permit and allow access to the people who have disabilities and i may be disabled too, who knows? something could happen to me. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. my name is tracy and i'm an on-site manager for 642 jones and i'm here to represent the majority of my tenants >> actually, if you are an employee of the company, one of the parties, you are not allowed to speak at this time. you can speak as part of the rebuttal. thank you.

>> it ensures tenant safety and access, a pleasant living environment and property security and which also complis with the rules for life safety and handicapped access. as illustrated in my brief, the overwhelming majorities within the upper tenderloin and nob hill neighborhoods have gates to prevent unauthorized access from the street. this security measure protects tenants and property. the gates allow for authorized access while stopping negotiate activities such as

prostitution, drug use, graffiti, urniation and defecation, trash dumping and camping by homeless in the space. these activitis were commonplace before a gate preventing unauthorized access. since the implementation of the august 15th, 2012 ruling that gate remain open from 7:30 a.m. to 6:p.m., conditions in the alley have started to deteriorate. and the alley is once again being used for some of the negative activities described above. photos illustrate something of the occurrences are included in my brief. i also have photos illustrating negative activities that have occurred in the alley after i submitted my brief, with the board's permission i will present these on overhead at

the end of my testimony. if the current gate does not meet the rules for life safety and handicapped access, that is not a sufficient reason to deny permits for any gates. that would be throwing the baby out with the bath water. if the current gate or the revised plans recently approved by the interested city agencies do not meet the rules the permit-holders must be given the opportunity to bring it into compliance or provide a gate that does. it is possible to maintain a gate across collin place without compromising the need to assure round-the-clock protection of tenants, property and quality of life or the need for life safety and handicapped access for residents of 691 post street and 642 jones street. thank you now with your permission i have four pages

that i would like to present. >> go ahead. i think you have a little time left. >> thank you. these photos are of skateboarders in the alley taken december 2nd at 4:47 p.m. and i apologize for the quality of the photos. they were printed on an inkjet printer, but i have circled the skateboarders. so you can see them. these photos are of a sofa bed dumped in the alley on december

2nd. 311 was called. the sofa bed could have ended up in the alley had the gate not been there. i apologize for the graphic nature of this next photo. this is vomit along the back wall of the alley. the photo was taken december 3rd at 2:45 p.m.and the final photo, this is a photo of a beer bottle in a paperbag near the backdoor of 61 post street. the photo was taken december 4th, at 5:55 p.m. and included

in my briefs with a picture of a beer can, taken in almost the exact same spot a few days earlier. >> thank you. is there any other public comment? seeing none we'll start rebuttal and miss utt, you have six minutes' of rebuttal. >> so again i would like to focus on the handicap issues. i am going to need access to the rear door of my building more frequently coming up in the future. and if the gate remains, i need it to become handicapped accessible both in and out, if the driver needs to come pick me up, they need to pull into the alley and i need to be able to buzz them in.

i can't hand out keys to all my drivers. there will be a lot of people who will have to help me. so having a key to the gate i don't think is reasonable. if you keep the gate i need something like a buzzer at the front door, so they can call me and i cans, but them in sort of thing. i think the other thing to take into consideration, which we talked about last time is also a fire escape. which is why i showed the drawing with the gate opening outward, so when the tenants leave through the backdoor and the fire escapes on alley, that they are able to push the gate outward for escape and not open the gates inward, so they can leave the alley. i don't know what else to say anymore. >> i have a question and if

you want to hold the time and think of other things to say, feel free to use that time. i have a question, you brought to us this evening a fairly lengthy and detailed list of things that you wanted, if the board were to uphold some form of the issuance of this permit, so that the gate could be allowed. did you attempt to communicate those issues, those particular points directly to the permit-holders? >> we talked about them at the the last hearing. nobody from their side has tried to contact me either. i was emailed by somebody on their side about having a key, and i didn't have the energy to deal with that. so nobody has spoken with each other. nobody has offered any. >> have you spoken to any

other agencies in the city with respect to accessibility, your accessibility issues? >> i have been asking if the board of appeals for help. i have asked the local police i have seen around for help answering questions. i don't know who else to go to. being sick is a full-time job and it's like two full-time jobs doing this. i don't know where else to go for help. >> outside of getting the door functional, so you guys are able to open and close it freely, would a simple coded door lock work rather than a key? that way you can give drivers that code? >> so somebody would call me and i would give them the code? >> as a caregiver, i understand what you are going through, i just recently finished six months' of chemo, along with my son, so i

understand the trials and tribulations you are dealing with, especially on low-energy and dealing with all of this other stuff as well, but at the same time u you are dealing with the building and making a win-win for everybody. so maybe a coded box, because you are going to have a lot of same caregivers that have that code. >> in last year i have had over 26 doctors and caregivers in the last 12 months. >> so the commissioner has made a suggestion and are you saying that would not be acceptable? >> i am not saying -- the lockboxes is a good idea. i'm just curious as to how everybody helping me will have access to the lockbox. >> at some point you are talking about a buzzer, so you could buzz them in. >> that would a lot easier.

>> a phone call on your telephone? >> it's just explaining to me and when you put a buzzer and pretty press the button -- i don't know. i'm looking for the easiest solution here. not something too complicated. >> the front door to your apartment has a buzzer system? >> yes, but that only allows access to the front door. >> i understand. i think you indicated last time that the elevator only goes to the front? >> incorrect, it goes to the basement? >> it goes to the basement? >> yes. >> i think you still have a little time left. i don't have any more questions.

>> can anybody else speak for me? can i share my time? >> yes, you can share your time. go ahead. >> commissioner, to your question, did we contact the other parties? the answer is yes. my wife phoned mr. flynn's office and hawthorne/stone and told them we would be available to discuss the gate. and it's not that we're opposed to the gate. it's that unfortunately, we no longer trust mr. flynn. every time he has done something he has made it worse. thank you. >> thank you. we can hear from you if you have more from hawthorne/stone,